Final List of Candidates for November General Election Now Available

Last week, the Texas Secretary of State finalized the list of candidates who will appear on ballots across Texas for all statewide and legislative races for this November’s general election. Readers should recall Burnt Orange Report has been tracking candidates who have filed for public office since last fall, keeping an open, public record for all to see on who is running for office. Those pages can be found below:

In this final update, candidates were added to eight races and removed from seven. Burnt Orange Report has been tracking 223 races and only had to make changes to 14 races in total at the end. Most of these final changes made involved the Texas Green Party.

With this final update, two more candidates are running unopposed while two others no longer have opposition in November.

Among the final changes made, Ben E. Mendoza has filed as an independent in House District 77 against Democratic State Representative Marisa Marquez and and Paul Ingmundson has filed as a Green against Democrat Mike Villareal in House District 123. These two filings mean Democrats Marquez and Villareal are no longer unopposed. This is especially important in the case of Villareal who has said he plans to resign from office to run for Mayor of San Antonio. Villareal plans to resign as soon as the general election is over in early November. Had Villareal resigned earlier this month, Green candidate Ingmundson would be running unopposed and would win by default.

Meanwhile, Libertarian Mike Doorling has withdrawn from Senate District 16 meaning Republican Don Huffines is unopposed has now won by default. In House District 32, Green Joshua Byerly has also withdrawn meaning Republican State Representative Todd Hunter has also won by default. Huffines is now the only individual running for Texas State Senate without any form of opposition. In the Texas House, 70 of the 150 seats have candidates running without any opposition; 46.7% of all seats across the state. 35 of the 55 Democratic seats are unopposed (63.6%) as are 35 of the 95 Republican seats (36.8%).

Overall 32.7% of all statewide or legislative offices throughout the state of Texas will feature only one candidate, a candidate who has now been elected by default meaning there is no need for an election. If narrowed to the two major parties, 125 statewide and legislative offices lack both a Democratic and Republican candidate, 56.1% of all offices.

There is one exception, in State House District 81 Republican Brooks Landgraf is running unopposed to replace Tryon Lewis but Michael J. McCulloch has been certified as a write-in candidate. Write-in candidates have also been certified in the races for US Senate, US Representative for District 19, and Governor.

Lastly, it is notable that the Green Party swapped their candidates for Texas Land Commissioner. Originally, Ulises Cabrera was declared as their candidate but at the filing deadline Valerie Alessi has been declared the candidate instead.

About Author

Joseph was raised in Friendswood, Texas in North Galveston County. He went on to graduate from the University of North Texas with a degree in Political Science. After working for multiple campaigns, Joseph was able to work in the 83rd legislature in Austin in 2013.
While retired from professional campaign work, Joseph enjoys sharing his knowledge of campaign data how to win elections in naturally unfriendly turf with others.
Joseph is an avid archer and enjoys all things geek including Star Wars and DC Comics.